World’s Highest Airport to open in May 2013
Tibet : The world’s highest airport will be put into operation in May 2013, after a successful test flight carried out there on 23 November 2012.
Once it’s been activated, China’s Daocheng Yading Airport will launch and recover commercial aircraft at a higher altitude than any other of the world’s airports, including Tibet’s Bangda.
The Daocheng Yading Airport flight test involved an Air China Airbus A319, earlier launched from Chengdu. This same route will be flown regularly by Air China Airbuses once the new airport opens – a flight lasting around one hour.
Daocheng Yading Airport is sited precisely 4,411 metres above sea level. It was finished three months ago and – at a height of 4,334m ASL – only Bangda Airport comes anywhere close to its height. Tibet, though, is soon to answer back as it’s building an airport positioned even higher.
However, albeit only briefly, China will soon hold the distinction of being the country with the highest operational airport on Earth.Located 130 kilometres away from the airport is the Yading Nature Reserve – a part of the world dubbed ‘the last pure land on the blue planet.’
Daocheng Yading Airport has a 4,200 metre long runway and, in its first year of operations, is set to handle approximately 500,000 passengers. The start of regular flights between Daocheng and Chengdu after the May airport opening will bring down to about 60 minutes a journey that, currently, takes some 13 hours to accomplish by road.
Air China is the Chinese flagship carrier and there’s only nine other airlines in the world that operate more aircraft. Transporting upwards of 60 million passengers ever single year, its fleet is comprised both of Boeing and Airbus airliners, including the A319 involved in today’s inaugural Daocheng Yading airport landing.
This is one of 31 A319s in Air China’s service, each of them equipped to carry up to 128 passengers. – Airport International News
